


Taller Children

by SORD



Category: Gintama
Genre: Adulthood, Character Study, Gen, Growing Up, Joui War, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-16
Updated: 2015-06-16
Packaged: 2018-04-04 15:34:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4143117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SORD/pseuds/SORD
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You're an adult, now, doing adult things, fighting, making friends - comrades. Each step from the tideline, each crunch of rocky beach below your feet, each pace towards the battlefront is movement further and further from childhood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Taller Children

_So you think you know_  
_Think you know, think you know better?_  
_Is it just because, just because_  
_You're older and wiser?_  
_Don't you know, Don't you know_  
_You don't get smarter?_  
_You're the same as you started_  
_You just jump a little higher_

-Elizabeth & The Catapult,  _Taller Children_

  

You wake up in the clammy dark and everything is ordinary. You are sick and disgusting and below-deck, you are dirty and you smell bad. There is a bucket of seawater that you pour on yourself to lessen some (hopefully all) of these attributes, and are met with fair-to-middling success. Everyone around you is wet and stinking and miserable. You are wetter, less stinking, and also miserable. An unremarkable moment in a remarkably unremarkable voyage.

 The first difference you notice is a change in the chop. The heaving of the ship is brisker, a cork in a bathtub instead of a lake. This isn't the deep and balance-destroying shift of the ocean, this is a bob and tip and tumble that tells you "shallow water" and "nearby land." You don't think too much of it. You're traveling through islands, after all. You pass by a lot of land.

 The second thing you notice is the crew. People are moving and stomping and shifting things around. Above-board there's rope-dragging and voices, and you're curious. You'd go check things out, but you've got a particularly interesting star-atlas open and you just _know_ you'll lose your train of thought if you pause now. You're almost done, only another hour and you're sure you'll have the whole thing memorized.

 The third thing you notice is the banging on the door, and then the shouting.

"Sakamoto-san! We've arrived!" 

Ah. Ah! Sorry, star-atlas! How inconvenient, but also, how _exciting!_ You've been waiting for this for - hell, it feels like you've been waiting for this your whole life! You're not exactly sure what "this" is - the war? It seems incredibly callous (and, of course, inaccurate) to say you've been waiting to fight in a war - you're a pacifist through-and-through. You're not a killer. But a fight? Yes, you've been waiting for a fight. You've been looking for something to fight for, and you've _always_ fought for the chance to leave solid ground. Ocean or space, you don't care either way, so long as you can live in peace - a peace _far away_ from everyone else.

You make your way to the stern of your ship, carefully maneuvering around the unmentionable stains of your previous ventures. You've finally, _finally_ found your way to dry land. Thank any god and every ancestor, thank fate and your own right thinking, you've landed, and safely, too! You're about to be off the boat, off the ocean. Happy and sad, that, because you like boats. No, you don't like boats, you _love_ boats. Love them! Don't let anyone get you wrong, boats are the best and you adore them. But they're also the worst, the way they list side to side, the way the waves move them up and down, the way they just weave and bend and the way the world shifts and oh god you're feeling queasy, the kind of nausea that makes your hands cold and your face sweaty. The inside of your cheek tastes like aluminum and you're salivating, you can feel dark sparks dancing around your vision, but you clench your jaw and tighten your expression. You are _not going to be sick._ And if it happens, well, nothing's getting past your teeth. 

You stare at the horizon. Look at it! So flat and steady, while the ship tilts and bucks beneath your feet. You look at the horizon as hard as you can because you don't want your first impression to be vomit. That'd be terrible! You're undeniably skilled when it comes to terrible first impressions but _that_ would really be something to write home about. (You are devoted to your eldest sister, Tome, and you write her as often as you can.) Hoping optimism can delay the inevitable, you start to compose your next letter in your head: " _Dearest anego. Today I did not puke on anyone._ " 

This is important. You want to look smart and cool and strong. This is your first real experience as an adult. You've got your sword (well, your middle sister Ei's husband's sword, your brother took yours and locked it up when you told him you were leaving) and you've got your fleet - well, your ship - well, not _technically_ your ship, actually, because you won big at the high-stakes gambling match you managed to fast-talk your way into, but you didn't actually _own_ the land you put up as your stake, but anyway. 

 You're an adult. You're tall, like an adult, and you've got armor, like an adult. You've gotten drunk and had sex and now you're joining the war, and it's _your_ choice to make, because you're an adult. 

An adult with no family to return to, maybe. Ei said she was divorcing her husband but you're not so sure. Your brother is going to be mad at you, and that _is_ for sure. You're definitely in big trouble with him. You're not positive your father even knows you've gone, because you haven't seen to him in a few weeks, but you know he's going to be furious if he finds out. Tome lets you get away with everything - well, she lets you get away with nothing, but that's pretty much the same thing. She yells and hugs at the same time. Actually, she's bossed you around and coddled you and been your driving force for so long you've been feeling a little lost on your own. 

But here, _here_ , you can't feel lost. Everything is in front of you! The shore, the land, the people, the sky, the horizon, the battlefield, the future. You see three people and they talk to you, and you honestly try your hardest to listen. Two of them look mad and keep yelling, so it's probably serious, and really you're doing your best, but you can't help it, you open your mouth to reply and just, boom. You're sick all over both of them. It's disgusting, and you can't help laughing when you apologize. (You can't help laughing _ever_.) You take off your haori and rip the sleeves and give them cloth to help with the cleanup. The one with the long hair - the one you didn't puke on - seems to approve of either the vomit or the offering or both.

 After that you follow your new best friends (because they are your very best friends from now on, you've decided) to their temporary headquarters. The shouty one, what's-his-name, who's adorable and angry and _particularly_ adorably angry about being short, is pretending to be in charge. Zura (you're sure his name is Zura, because he makes such a great joke about how his name _isn't_ Zura) is trying to look wise, but his hair keeps falling across his face. And the one with the white hair is trailing behind, complaining, kicking stones at the short one and moaning about how his shirt smells like vomit. He's going to be your _best_ best friend, and you're pretty sure his name is Kintoki, because you can see his heart through his chest and it gleams like all the gold you gave up when you left your family.

You're an adult, now, doing adult things, fighting, making friends - comrades. Each step from the tideline, each crunch of rocky beach below your feet, each pace towards the battlefront is movement further and further from childhood. 

(You're wrong. Tomorrow, when you cut your first throat and see your first victim die in the reddish mud that stains your feet, you feel like crying and running home to your sister, and it never gets easier. You're a child. You all are. Shinsuke is small and Katsura is precocious and Gintoki isn't golden like you thought but a pure shining silver, and you're all just taller children, all four of you, all thousand of you. 

That feeling never goes away, and that's why you eventually leave. You've got to grow up _sometime_.)

 


End file.
